Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister can take that to the hustings, if she wishes. Whether an endorsement from me will be of assistance or not is another matter.

I made the point on Committee Stage that An Post staff, particularly the postmasters and postmistresses throughout the country, can play a far more valuable role because they have signed the Official Secrets Act 1963 while many of the other service providers, those that are being considered by the Minister, have not. From a social point of view, I would have concerns in that regard. First, as I stated, if one knows the rate of social assistance payment that someone is getting, one knows the total household income. One can tell a lot from a person's payment. Also, there is a role that those staff can play in sub-post offices in assisting the public in submitting applications online which would make the processing of those applications far more efficient for the Department. The Department's Secretary General, and every other Secretary General within Government, would be delighted if every application they received were submitted online because it would streamline the process. The difficulty is it involves closing the door to those who do not have access to electronic communication, who are not able to use computers and who are not IT literate. An Post and the sub-post office network could fill that void. One example I came across during the week relates to four individuals, from the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's constituency and my constituency, who have had their beef genomics scheme application refused on the basis that they could not provide evidence that the application was received by the Department. Why not have An Post, through the sub-post office network, working to provide that service to the public in order that such applications could be submitted electronically?

The Minister also makes the argument that she cannot force social welfare recipients to collect their payments at a sub-post office because they have built up an entitlement and there is flexibility of movement throughout the European Union. She is perfectly correct in relation to benefit payments where recipients have made a contribution or there is an automatic entitlement, and one cannot take that away from them. However, social assistance payments are completely different. Social assistance payments are based on one's address and one's means. There is no reason social assistance payments, particularly unemployment assistance or, as it is now called, jobseeker's allowance, should not be paid through post offices. There are many other payments that could be made that way that would address the issues of client error and fraud and would identify some of the issues of departmental error. I believe that the benefit to the Department would far outweigh the potential cost savings that are being thought about within the Department by squeezing An Post by bringing in another service provider.

Those aspects could be tied in to a social provision that would be allowed within EU competition rules. If some other service provider can provide the same level of service in this jurisdiction, so be it. I very much doubt it. We should look to see how we can sweat the existing assets to greatly improve efficiency and error detection within the Department and make far greater savings than the couple of pence that can be saved by closing the local sub-post office and forcing the elderly into taxis to travel 20, 21 or 22 miles to pick up their old age pension.

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